Dr. Peter Hotez, the co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital, spoke on CNBC's "The News with Shepard Smith," and said that the United States public should not become complacent because of decreasing COVID-19 cases. This is especially amid new reports of a new variant, B.1.526, becoming prevalent in New York.
COVID-19 Cases Dropping
According to Hotez, we are celebrating because the numbers are going down. However, he is saying that we are in the eye of the hurricane and the next forthcoming big wave will occur, reported CNBC. The U.S. is witnessing a large decline in new novel coronavirus cases.
The Caveat
However, there is a significant caveat. A CNN assessment of data from Johns Hopkins University indicated that the U.S. is witnessing a 29 percent decline in new coronavirus cases than the previous week. It is the steepest one-week decline the U.S. has seen in the course of the pandemic. But it is unclear exactly how much of the decline could be attributed to the winter weather that has prevailed in the nation. This forced officials to close testing sites, which affects the collection of essential data.
As COVID-19 cases plummet and inoculations total 1.7 million Americans per day and rising, health experts are increasingly striking a new tone in their pandemic evaluations: hope.
According to Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, he could be wrong, but he does not think the United States will be seeing a big fourth surge. He believes we have seen the worst of the pandemic, reported Anchorage Daily News.
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According to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins data, average daily cases of COVID-19 in the nation have dropped an estimated 57 percent. Several states, however, are not seeing as sharp of a decline.
Many states affected by winter storms are witnessing large declines in new cases this week, per Johns Hopkins data. These include Texas, where cases are down 56 percent compared to the previous week. According to the COVID Tracking Project on Thursday, it had been unable to update the daily number of tests conducted in Texas for four days due to the winter weather, reported ABC 7.
Numerous epidemiologists and other scientists, while still vigilant, stated they feel increasingly hopeful that the rest of 2021 will not replay last year's nightmare. Experts remarked the arrival of spring would possibly aid the ongoing steep decline in COVID-19 cases. The warmer weather enables people to spend more time outdoors and creates a less suitable environment for the virus.
Vermont is merely down 22 percent in average daily cases. New York is down an estimated 45 percent, Oregon down nearly 47 percent, and Florida is down 48 percent in average daily cases. Hotez singled Florida out for the spread of a highly transmissible COVID-19 variant in the state that was first detected in the United Kingdom.
According to Hotez on Wednesday, it intrigues him and not necessarily in a good way regarding Florida, Ten percent of the virus isolates coming out of Florida is that B.117 variant that came out of the UK.
